Water and Ash
by l.h. Zein
Summary: The story of Poseidon and Hestia. Other gods and goddesses mentioned.


Midnight ocean blue and gold red fire. Opposites in every way, yet we watch and we fall and we feel. We were born 6. Even. Almost as though our divine fathers' had known that we were each destined for one another. It's a curse to be born in this family. We open our eyes for a second of life and the next we are engulfed in the shadows, swallowed whole by our father. When finally we open our eyes once more and are greeted with light, it's to see our entire world in oblivion.

My sweet sister Hera has pledged herself to Zeus. She was always a Queen amongst us, so it comes as no surprise. Sad, lonely Hades sacrifices himself for us, taking a place in the shadows to help the restless souls find the peace and justice that comes from only sweet death. Demeter tells me, she worries for him. It's this worry that will later prompt her in finding Hades a little light, so that he is not damned to spend eternity in dark midnight alone. For me. Now that I can feel the warmth of the sun, I feel my flames grow and burn from within me. I sneak away in the mornings and burn my fires. It's one of these mornings that I notice it, the pair of sea green eyes besotted with me.

Brother. The word falls thickly and sweet from my lips. He makes no reply and instead leaves his place in the shadows of tree branches to join me. He is enraptured with the flames, so different from his own tumbling waves. His eyes meet mine, and for a moment the stone in my chest thumps. He looks away, the smirk dancing on his face. Of course, he knows.

We meet like this, in secret, each one of us rushing to the other like the lovers we are. Lovers… Are we? Poseidon is no brute. He is calm, unwavering, constant, but like his unruly nature, he prefers a chase. Never does he make one move out of place.

My flames burn brighter whenever he watches.

Our fingers curl into each other as we let grandfather Uranus wrap us in his embrace in his dance with eternal Nyx, long after I've burned my last fire of the night. Silent, as we gaze up to the ethereal heaven, more like mortals, instead of the immortals that we are, finding wonder in the things we already know. He turns to his side and his great oceans quench my burning fires. It becomes not a question of who moved first, instead it's the question of why not sooner. It is beautiful. It is soft then rough, so intoxicating it's a relief that air is not as vital for us as those who dwell below. It is passion. Then, like Aphrodite herself is laughing at us, the pain unfolds. We are the beginning. How could we forget that passion is pain?

It's not the dull ache of his absence that tells me we've done something wrong. There's so much more than that. It's the weariness I feel deep within my spirit. It's the dimness in my flame. In him, I see it in the parlor of his cheeks and in the dampened rage of his storms. We are losing ourselves. I can't understand it. If this is love, how can it bring so much harm? This is not the love that Chaos had for the Dark that it bore the world anew. This is not the hymns of cheeky Eros. The answer is simple, I find, when my mind is able to think. We are not them. We are the two sides of a war that is doomed to last until time begins anew. Because no matter what we feel, we cannot change the power that burns in place of the blood of mortals. He is the ocean, and I am the fire. We can never be.

He rages, stubborn, refusing to believe when I tell him. He desperately reaches for me, and like a fool, I allow it. It is no longer in my control how I act when he is near. I'm not sure which terrifies me more; how hopelessly easy it was for me to lose, or the sensation I haven't felt since I first came face to face with my father…fear.

In the end, I cannot turn away blind anymore, so I beg a favor from the only one of us with the power to enforce it. Shamelessly, I kneel before his throne with tears that burn as they fall off my cheek, and pronounce my wish to remain a virgin goddess, taking no lover from now until time ceases. Sweet Hera looks at me with those deep brown eyes, and I look away. I will not have her pity. If I cannot have him, I will have no other. I have tasted extraordinary. Anything less is an insult too potent to bear.

He is forced to accept. He will risk no chaos so soon after we have risen from its clutches after millennium of war. The pain never leaves him, and as I watch his face regain its color and the seas return to their vicious dance, there is one thing that never recovers…the mirth in his own eyes. I have slaughtered it.

I light no fires that night.

In the end, it's his mood that forces Zeus to issue an ultimatum. You will find calm for your storms, with who it matters not. He does not venture far. He chooses one exactly like him, a beautiful mystery of the deep waters they both adore. The pain is less, but when he kneels before me for my blessing and he runs his thumb in circles over hand, I cannot tear my gaze from his. It is not a blessing he seeks; it is forgiveness.

I return to my fires, one to greet the world along with rosy Dawn, and one to usher in the night with the Titans of old. So I watch as the heavens continue forward and pretend not to notice the deep aquamarine seas that continue to watch without fail every morning and every night. For he is the ocean, and I am the fire. We are timeless eternal until chaos returns.


End file.
